22nd

I get an entirely higher class of bizarre dream than most people, I think. Last night, I found myself back in my secondary school (form 2, so I was 13 or 14) sitting a test. The test for the most part was an ordinary basic English test, but then things got weird:

The numbering, placement and appearance of the question is as close to my dream as I could make it. I suspect the answer is the meaning of life. Answers on a postcard please, "42" and other smart-ass answers not accepted.

Well, war is pretty much all I've been paying attention to recently, so a bunch of random links vaguely related:

Dear Raed is a blog, apparently from someone within Baghdad. Its authenticity has been doubted, but since it's suddenly stopped updating, coinciding with power supplies in Baghdad being knocked out, I think it's probably real.

In a St. Patrick's day parade, supporters of County Monaghan in Ireland abandoned their traditional banner since county Monaghan's outline, which was on their banner, looks similar to that of Iraq. I'm frankly impressed that Americans could recognize the outline of Iraq.

You should also keep an eye on the Office of Homeland Insecurity's distraction level alerts.

Steve Bell has been drawing excellent cartoons for a while, but his most recent effort is really not that good, but there appears to be a dearth of good cartoons considering the mileage that can be got out of everybody's favourite new buzz-phrase, shock and awe. (Or its more recent relative "shock, surprise, flexibility and the use of overwhelming force")

Since CNN's video feeds all require that awful RealONE pass, I've been watching the free video feeds on BBC News. It's produced some pretty good coverage, including great footage of Bush getting his hair coiffed prior to his address to the nation. Hoo boy, did the White House get pissed.

The peace movement continues, waving their flags, a popular one of which is a rainbow flag with the word "PACE" (Italian for "peace") written across it in white. Of course, as several have pointed out, this bears some similarity to the gay prideflag. This is not particularly amusing, except that the inventor of the rainbow peace flag is apparently an Italian Catholic organization, which has been upset to discover that it been accidentally promoting homosexuality.

And finally, for your dose of ridiculousness for the day, I invite you to see the CIA's homepage for kids, which appears to be anti-drugs ("fly high on intelligence, not drugs" says a fairly random-looking cartoon owl) and pro-spying. Hilariouspictures abound.